Volunteers help Northampton company to make 150,000 face shields in one month

Mark Wolstenholme of Kettering Surgical Appliances issued a plea for help through Abington-based Magee Street Bakery at the start of the lockdown for volunteers to put face shields together to help his family firm distribute PPE to the NHS.

His company, which has been based in Upper Mounts for 50 years, was already an established supplier to hospitals around the country and his production line has never been more in demand over the past three months.

After taking on thousands of orders, Mark needed extra pairs of hands to put the face shields together, which required a mammoth effort from 60 volunteers across the town.

Volunteers and staff in the first month stayed up all night - some nights until 3am - to make sure they could send the courier off each day with 5,000 masks.

Even international company Meggit - a company which sows air craft seat belts - helped Mark to sow 5,000 of the face shields on their machines.

Mark has described his volunteers as amazing and said their efforts have helped to keep hospital staff as far away as Plymouth protected from coronavirus.

He said: "Magee Street Bakery put a post on their social media saying 'this company is local, they need some help, can you help?' and the phone rang off the hook for two days."

Volunteers who put themselves forward were then divided into socially distanced teams outside the factory - at different times of the day - to make a small production line of gluers, strap makers, stickers and packers.

Mark, who offered payment to the volunteers, said some wanted to donate their cash to the NHS while another paid for their church roof to be repaired.

He added: "Without people saying 'I want to help' it just would not have happened - not at the volume we were doing, it would have been impossible.

"I know that the hospital staff were saying thank you to these people who were using their spare time to help.

"The people helping us were just fantastic."